Ross Ramsey

Ross Ramsey
is executive editor and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, where he writes regular columns on politics, government and public policy. Before joining the Tribune, Ross was editor and co-owner of Texas Weekly. He did a 28-month stint in government as associate deputy comptroller for policy and director of communications with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Before that, he reported for the Houston Chronicle from its Austin bureau and for the Dallas Times Herald, first on the business desk in Dallas and later as its Austin bureau chief, and worked as a Dallas-based freelance business writer, writing for regional and national magazines and newspapers. Ross got his start in journalism in broadcasting, covering news for radio stations in Denton and Dallas.

Recent Contributions

Republican state lawmakers could decide who'll be speaker of the Texas House in January 2019 themselves — and then stick together when it goes to a vote in the full House of Representatives. That would be a significant change.

In Austin — the poster child for property tax recapture in Texas right now — the school district is telling taxpayers they’ll be sending $2.6 billion to the state over the next five years. That's inspiring some crazy ideas.

A new report says the deferrals and other fiscal tricks lawmakers used this year — and are considering in the current special session — are digging a hole legislators will have to fill when they return to write a new budget in January 2019.

In his first special session as governor of Texas, Greg Abbott is watching his hopes for 20 wins on 20 agenda items fall victim to the same legislative discord that marred the regular session earlier this year.

An eye-opening proposal to kill the local school property tax in order to force Texas lawmakers to build a new school finance system won unanimous approval Thursday from the House's tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

A Texas governor can tell lawmakers what subjects to work on in a special session but can't tell them exactly what to do. The session that started this week is now in the hands of the Texas Legislature — not the governor.

The governor has identified the issues he wants lawmakers to work on during the special session. He says he'll keep score to track friends and foes. But he hasn't publicly made his positions clear — so how do they know how to vote?